Paul Begala: The Strangely Silent

Jan. 23 Debate in Tampa

by Paul Begala at Daily Beast:

“Without the cheering and jeering crowds to whip him up, Newt was oddly subdued. That left Mitt in the spotlight, squirming about his tax returns.

When NBC’s Matt Lauer asked multimillionaire Mitt Romney about income inequality and the decline of the middle class, Romney replied, “You know, I think it’s fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms.”

Lauer’s NBC colleague Brian Williams gave Romney and his competitors a chance to discuss issues without the cheering, jeering, booing, embarrassing crowds we have seen in prior GOP debates. Without the roar of the crowd, Newt was much less effective. Like all bullies, he feeds off the mob. But tonight, at the urging of Williams, the crowd was mute and Gingrich’s faux fury, so effective in prior debates, never materialized.

Romney got what he wanted—a quiet room where he could coolly rebut Gingrich’s attacks and then launch his own preprogrammed counterattacks. His super-duper PAC is already savaging Gingrich on television, spending millions to inform Florida Republicans about Gingrich’s ethical woes, his lucrative Beltway consulting gigs, and his sofa sharing with Nancy Pelosi.

This will not, I believe, stop Newt’s momentum. And it does not do anything for the central problems facing Romney’s candidacy: middle-class voters don’t like him and conservative voters don’t trust him. Romney simply cannot connect to what Bill Clinton used to call “walkin’ around folks.” He looked especially phony when talking about undocumented workers “self-deporting” and squirmed when asked about his tax returns.

Indeed, the saddest moment of the debate—perhaps of the entire campaign—was Willard Mitt Romney distancing himself from George Romney. The elder Romney walked out of the 1964 GOP Convention because he believed the party of Lincoln was walking away from civil rights. And when he sought the presidency in 1968 he released 12 years of back tax returns, noting at the time that releasing only one year might allow a politician to clean up his returns knowing he was planning to run for office.

The tax issue will continue to dog Romney. He will be asked endlessly what he’s hiding: Were there years when he paid even less than 15 percent? Did he ever pay zero—or close to it?

But Romney repudiated his father—sad in any context, but especially when the younger Mitt is so obviously a CEO/governor/millionaire in part because of the advantages his CEO/governor/millionaire father bestowed on him.

“You know,” Mitt said, “I agree with my dad on a lot of things, but we also disagree. And going out with 12 years of returns is not something I’m going to do.” Apparently Romney has placed his filial devotion in the same blind trust in which he has stored his dignity.

The tax issue will continue to dog Romney, even after he releases one or two tax returns. Voters will want to know why Romney reportedly has multimillion-dollar investments in the Caymans. Romney will be asked endlessly what he’s hiding: were there years when he paid even less than 15 percent? Did he ever pay zero—or close to it? These questions simply will not confine themselves to quiet rooms.

Ron Paul and Rick Santorum, two talented debaters who know their minds and are not afraid to speak them (unlike, too often, Romney) were often left in the dust. Santorum was asked about his aggressive intervention in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, the Floridian whose husband wanted to honor her wish to be disconnected from life support. You could almost see the thought bubble over Newt Gingrich’s head when the topic turned to a helpless woman in a hospital bed: “Obviously, you divorce her.”

(The following comments referred to the Begala article. I selected them at random without reading them:”

COMMENTS:

Oh please. All this drama over a millionaire’s tax returns. Give us a break. Maybe we actually ifgure out what any of these guys – including Obama – are going to do to make our lives better if the media would just get past the carnival it manufactures over politics. Newt wasn’t subdued. For once, his lies caught up with him and he had no response.

Like many of the Americans across the nation likely sharing this opinion, the opinions and observations of “the media” are irrelevant, they have demonstrated their lame brains in the conspicuous socioeconomic catastrophes across the nation, and their bantering among themselves is so pompous as to be “indigestible,” to wit, th Sunday morning platform, “Reliable Sources.”

This a.m. CNN’s Soledad O’Brien turned up as her own emcee with the typical “players,” an “air head,” she actually chirped when introducing the grief stricken son and daughter of the late coach of Pennsylvania State, clearly long revered, and had to lead off with the insensitive inquiry as to “how would he be remembered,” suggesting “his reputation might be sullied by the “scandal?”

That kind of stuff .. and then the “chubby guy” had to attack Newt Gingrich related to his association w/Fanny and Freddie, insisting he would have had to be a “lobbyist,” and then O’Brien scoffing at $1M+ in fees; he holds a Ph.D from Tulane, and Soledad, other than an agent, is paid what; next up was to be Obama’s revered “advisor” Valerie Jarrett; what?

After suffering through some of the worst and most ineffective slate of Democratic candidates Mondale, Gary Hart, George Dukakis, John Kerry, (even though, with the exception of Dukakis, all them would have been better presidents than Reagan and Bush) I find myself absent the usual tension and feeling of dread I have felt in previous elections. This is because the lunatic fringe of the GOP base, consisting of evangelical Christian conservatives, Commie fearing descendants of the Burchers and the sanitized offspring of Southern racists and Klan members has taken over the party. Witness their slate of candidates. They purged their party of any semi-sane moderates who might have been acceptable to the general electorate and now all they’re left with are a raging lunatic, a hateful homophobe a corrupt has-been and their fading front runner, an out of touch, unprincipled, empty suit. I take comfort in the destruction of this malignant coalition. It was long overdue. We have not had a constructive and viable opposition to the left for thirty years. Hell, we haven’t even had a “real” left in thirty years. The pendulum swung so far that Bill Clinton was to the right of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson would be considered a Bolshevik today.

Romney fast talking, through his barely memorized attacks reminds one a middle school student rushing through the Gettysburg address, before he forgets it. Mitt doesn’t have an authentic bone in his body and it’s evident whenever he speaks. He doesn’t connect or really know the meaning of what he’s saying. He is a robo-candidate following a pre-scripted program. It’s obvious in how frazzled he gets when things go, even a little bit, off script. This does not bode well if he’s the nominee. Obama will decimate him in the debates. Newt, on the other hand, does come off more authentic — an authentic, narcissistic, sociopath. He just might be the perfect candidate for the GOP base.

“Apparently Romney has placed his filial devotion in the same blind trust in which he has stored his dignity”.

Comment: Whether it is Obama’s Marxism, his own personal race and cultural hate for traditional American values, or simply personal and collective expediency which drives him to bankrupt the nation, I do not know.

What I do know from all my mind and soul, the man is a Marxist and a danger to the present and future of our democratic society. As Dennis Prager has summed up OBAMA’S THREAT TO AMERICA;

“THE BIGGER THE GOVERNMENT, THE SMALLER THE CITIZEN!”

Mr. Obama’s expansion of Government Power makes Americans very, very, small. Those in the Obama one party press leftwing corps have become a tablespoon of poison applied to America’s democracy’s daily diet as an example. Expansion of Obama’s Marxist rule includes 1. Obamacare, the government dictatorship over citizen health care, 2. the selection of tribal oriented Supreme Court Justices based on the bigotries of diversity rather than the brotherhood and sisterhood of E Pluribu Unum, and 3. the Obama attack on the American Legislative Branch of Government, by creating a Dictatorship of Czars to effect Obamarule to circumvent Congress.